Chapter 4 - THE EMERALD BRACELET
He pointed straight at Aunt Evelyn.
I froze, the silver rosary still heavy in my pocket. Aunt Evelyn sat frozen in her wingback chair by the fireplace, her knuckles white where she gripped the carved wooden armrests.
“Daniel,” Evelyn said, her voice shaking with the brittle fragility of an eighty-year-old woman. “How dare you. I loved your father. He was my baby brother.”
“You loved his money!” Daniel yelled, struggling against Adrian’s grip. “Adrian, let me go! I’m telling the truth!”
Adrian didn’t release him, but he eased the pressure on his brother’s throat. He turned his head slowly, looking at the elderly woman who had helped raise them.
“Evelyn?” Adrian asked.
Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears. She looked fragile, ancient, and deeply offended. “Adrian, please. He’s backed into a corner. He’s been stealing from you, and now he’s trying to throw the blame on an old woman.”
It made sense. It made perfect, logical sense. Daniel was a cornered rat.
But then I saw it.
Cassandra had retreated to the shadows near the velvet curtains. A smirk played on her crimson lips. She was enjoying this. She wanted them tearing each other apart.
“Under the floorboards in the cottage,” Daniel gasped out, his chest heaving. “There’s a lockbox. I saw June bury it the night before Dad’s funeral. I dug it up a week later to see what it was.”
“You broke into my home?” June asked, her voice sharp with betrayal.
“I had to know!” Daniel pleaded. “Inside the box is an emerald bracelet. Custom-made. The police were looking for it because a witness saw a woman wearing it leaving Dad’s study the night he was poisoned.”
Evelyn scoffed. “A heart attack, Daniel. It was a heart attack.”
“It was digitalis!” Daniel shouted. “A massive overdose slipped into his evening tea. The same tea you used to bring him every night, Evelyn.”
Adrian let Daniel go. He stepped back, running a hand through his dark hair. The empire he controlled was vast and brutal, but inside these walls, he had always believed he was safe.
“Margaret,” Adrian said without looking at me. “Go to the cottage. Take a crowbar from the groundskeeper's shed. Tear up the floorboards under the kitchen sink.”
“I’ll go,” Daniel offered, rubbing his neck.
“You stay exactly where you are,” Adrian snapped.
I nodded and hurried out of the dining room. The night air was freezing as I crossed the manicured lawn toward the small stone cottage at the edge of the estate. My heart hammered against my ribs. I had known Evelyn for twenty-four years. She baked cookies for the staff on holidays. Could she really be a murderer?
I found a crowbar in the shed and let myself into June’s cottage. The place smelled of lavender and old paper. I went straight to the kitchen sink.
It took me ten minutes of agonizing, sweaty work to pry up the ancient oak floorboards. Beneath the dust and insulation, my flashlight beam hit something metallic.
It was a heavy, rust-covered iron box.
I hauled it out. The padlock was broken—Daniel had clearly forced it open years ago. I flipped the lid back.
Inside was a layer of velvet. I pulled it back.
There was no emerald bracelet.
The box was completely empty, save for a single, folded sheet of paper.
I unfolded the paper with trembling fingers. It was a child’s drawing, done in bright crayons. It showed a tall man, a small boy, and a house with a red roof. At the top, in clumsy, oversized letters, it read: To Daddy, from Leo.
My stomach plummeted.
Leo.
Daniel had a son. A boy nobody in the family knew about.
I ran back to the main house, clutching the drawing. As I burst through the dining room doors, breathless and shivering, all eyes turned to me.
“Margaret?” Adrian asked. “Did you find the bracelet?”
I shook my head. I walked past a triumphant-looking Aunt Evelyn and a sweating Daniel. I stopped in front of Adrian and handed him the drawing.
Adrian frowned, studying the crayon strokes. “What is this? Who is Leo?”
Before I could speak, Cassandra sighed loudly.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Daniel,” she snapped. “You didn't tell them?”
Daniel closed his eyes in defeat.
“Tell us what?” Adrian demanded.
“The bracelet isn't there because Daniel pawned it five years ago,” Cassandra said, pouring herself a glass of wine with maddening calmness. “To pay for his bastard son’s silence.”
June stepped forward, her eyes blazing with sudden, fierce anger.
“Do not call that little boy a bastard in my presence,” June warned, her voice vibrating with a power that shocked the entire room.
Cassandra laughed. “Or what, June? You’ll bake me into a pie? You’re just a maid.”
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“No,” June said, reaching into the pocket of her cardigan. She pulled out a heavy, gold signet ring. The Moretti family crest. The ring worn only by the head of the family. The ring that had supposedly been buried with Adrian’s father.
“I’m the woman who raised your father’s heir,” June said. She looked at Adrian. “Leo isn't Daniel’s son, Adrian. He’s yours.”
